iElectrify: Improve Website Design & Increase Conversionshttp://ielectrify.com
Tue, 25 Mar 2014 15:27:16 +0000en-UShourly1Everything I Need to Know About Life, I Learned by Being an Entrepreneurhttp://ielectrify.com/lifestyle-entrepreneur
http://ielectrify.com/lifestyle-entrepreneur#commentsMon, 09 Dec 2013 15:46:50 +0000http://ielectrify.com/?p=680As small business owners, we’re often the catalyst that drives incredible success stories. Whether it’s defying seemingly unsurmountable odds or finally breaking free from the corporate rat race, people look to small businesses for inspiration, motivation, and sometimes as an escape from their own reality. Entrepreneurs are a special class – there’s no doubt about.. Click here to continue reading

]]>As small business owners, we’re often the catalyst that drives incredible success stories. Whether it’s defying seemingly unsurmountable odds or finally breaking free from the corporate rat race, people look to small businesses for inspiration, motivation, and sometimes as an escape from their own reality.

Entrepreneurs are a special class – there’s no doubt about it. Oftentimes, we’re our own marketing team, accountants, secretaries, PR specialists and web designers. That’s in addition to being husbands/fathers/mothers/wives and juggling every else’s expectations of us. That’s a pretty hefty burden to carry around…

And I wouldn’t want it any other way.

Because, you see, being a small business owner has given me an outlook on life that I would probably never have developed otherwise. Playing and participating in all these roles chisels away some of the feeling that you’re “supposed” to be just a cog in a wheel – You know, the kind of thing that school prepares us for during some of the most formative years of our lives.

Although I’m “just” a third of the way along in life, I’ve learned some very important things during the journey – and I’d like to share those with you in the hopes that it will excite, motivate and inspire you toward the possibility of entrepreneurship in your own life:

Work Does Not Equal Life

While everyone else out there is gushing about their kids, their vacation, their hobbies and such – I’m sitting over here thinking “I love my job!” Not many people can honestly say that, but I’ve learned that even if you could spend hours talking about what you do and being passionate about it – it’s best to take a step back and look at all the other things your job has enabled you to do.

Do you get to travel more? Have the time to take up a new hobby? Started on something you’ve always wanted to learn? Talk about that instead! Work may make up the bulk of your day to day life, but it doesn’t have to be (and shouldn’t be) the only thing in your life.

You Don’t Have to Save the World

Oftentimes, as entrepreneurs, we feel like we must have this earth-shattering, mind-blowingly phenomenal product or service first and THEN, if our customers decide we’re worthy, we can start reaching out and changing lives with it.

Which is completely ass-backwards.

You don’t have to save the world with your product. Just use it to change the life of one person. Your customers aren’t nameless, faceless companies – they’re human beings. One life changed has a ripple-effect on other lives in the process. Do this enough times and the ripples will turn into full-fledged waves and you will have a far greater impact than you realize.

You Don’t Have Time to Fail

And by that, I’m not saying “you can’t fail” – I’m saying you don’t have time to fail. You don’t have time to dwell on what you could’ve changed, done differently, or whether you should’ve started at all. Did you learn from the failure? Great. Now get back up, dust yourself off and try again based on what you’ve learned.

Don’t Ever Let Anyone Stamp Out Your Fire

Entrepreneurs are bold, risk-taking, quirky visionaries. It’s just how we’re wired. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that you’re not cut out for this or that. Running a business is one of the most life-altering, confidence-building, structure-demolishing jobs in the world, and you’re the perfect person for the job. There are going to be friends and family members who can’t (or won’t) be able to relate. That’s okay. That’s their problem, not yours.

Be Independent

Can your business function without you? If you’re just starting, it’s understandable that you’re going to want to sink your own time and resources into building it from the ground up into something you can be proud of. But at some point you’ve got to be able to let go a little.

When you do, will your business be able to stand on its own two feet?

If not, take steps to extract yourself from it – create products that distill your knowledge into something that people can pay for and work on at their own pace. It may not be the same as hiring you directly as a consultant but it will give the customer the same (or similar) result as hiring you directly but at a lower price, and more importantly, it gives you some of that much-needed freedom you craved when you went into business for yourself

Never Stop Learning

Your industry is always going to be changing. New technologies are going to emerge that will completely change how you do business, or your business as you now know it will become obsolete in favor of something else.

Progress is inevitable, but that doesn’t mean that you should fear it. Never stop learning. Read, adjust and adapt. This will position you as someone who’s ahead of the curve, and who won’t be blind-sided by the changes when the rest of your competition is struggling to keep up.

What Entrepreneurial Lessons Has Life Taught You So Far?

]]>http://ielectrify.com/lifestyle-entrepreneur/feed64 Must-See Content Marketing Plugins for WordPresshttp://ielectrify.com/content-marketing-plugins
http://ielectrify.com/content-marketing-plugins#respondThu, 21 Nov 2013 16:34:42 +0000http://ielectrify.com/?p=669Content marketing can be overwhelming – especially when you’re trying to wrangle it all by yourself. How do you know which types of content customers respond best to? What should you write about next? How much content is too much? And while a good analytics package can give you details on who’s visiting, from where.. Click here to continue reading

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Content marketing can be overwhelming – especially when you’re trying to wrangle it all by yourself. How do you know which types of content customers respond best to? What should you write about next? How much content is too much?

And while a good analytics package can give you details on who’s visiting, from where and how long – it can’t give you the kinds of details you need to craft incredible content, so that your words practically market themselves.

Fortunately, there are several WordPress plugins available that are designed to make the writing and marketing process easier. And while I’m not a fan of installing a plugin just for the “shiny object” effect of it (too many plugins can clutter your pages, not to mention possibly conflict with each other and cause slow loading times), the right plugin can make a world of difference in helping you keep your content marketing strategy on track.

Here are a few of my personal favorites:

Content Scheduler (Free)

This plugin is particularly important if you have a group of guest authors or you’ve had your blog for a long time. As technology changes, things become out of date. The content scheduler makes posts expire after a time frame you set, plus optionally notifies the post’s author that the content has either expired, or needs to be updated.

Qualaroo (Paid)

Sometimes the best solution is also the easiest! This unobtrusive plugin adds a simple survey to the right corner of your page, asking visitors to anonymously choose an option, such as what other topics they’d like to read about in the future. What makes this different from other survey plugins is that it comes fully-stocked with a library of questions that let you gain smart insights about what your audience wants, without annoying them.

Qualaroo is a paid plugin that starts at $47/month for small businesses.

Search Meter (Free)

Every WordPress site comes with a search functionality. But what if you could find out what visitors were actually searching for? Search Meter is a plugin designed to do just that. You can also see what searches came up with no results – which could be a key indicator of areas where potential customers are slipping through the cracks on your site. Optionally, you can choose to show your visitors the most searched-for items – a particular plus for e-commerce sites.

Inbound Writer (Free and Paid)

This is a neat little plugin which provides real-time SEO to your post as you’re typing it. This way, you can learn what keywords and phrases users are searching for, and how closely your post matches what they want. It will also give you recommendations and let you know the strength of the competition you’re up against for those particular keywords.

It works best when you’ve typed around 200-250 words. Using this in combination with the popular Yoast SEO plugin can help you ensure that every piece of content you write is optimized for the best possible performance from the moment you hit publish.

What are Your Favorite Content Marketing Plugins?

Have you tried a plugin I haven’t mentioned here? Share it with me below in the comments and help your fellow bloggers!

]]>http://ielectrify.com/content-marketing-plugins/feed05 Simple Things You Can Do to Lower Bounce Rates – Using WordPresshttp://ielectrify.com/lower-bounce-rates
http://ielectrify.com/lower-bounce-rates#commentsMon, 21 Oct 2013 12:54:26 +0000http://ielectrify.com/?p=664Looking for ways to fix a high bounce rate? You’re not alone. Many people see horrendously high numbers (70% or more) and instantly panic – poor bounce rates can have a ripple effect on your search engine rankings and ultimately your sales. But having a high bounce rate isn’t always a bad thing. For example,.. Click here to continue reading

]]>Looking for ways to fix a high bounce rate? You’re not alone. Many people see horrendously high numbers (70% or more) and instantly panic – poor bounce rates can have a ripple effect on your search engine rankings and ultimately your sales.

But having a high bounce rate isn’t always a bad thing. For example, affiliate sites that direct people elsewhere to purchase want a high bounce rate, because they can potentially get paid for all that traffic they’re referring.

Still, if you’re not an affiliate site, you may be wondering what you can do to lower your bounce rate. If you’re using WordPress, here are five simple fixes you can use right now to lower bounce rates and improve conversions on your website:

First, Know Where You Stand

This chart, part of a larger infographic from KISSmetrics shows bounce rate averages by the type of site – ranging from landing pages to portals:

Now, this isn’t to say that you should completely turn your business plan on its head and start developing a portal just for increased “stickability’”, but rather recognize bounce rates for what they are: not all visitors are going to jump on your offer the first time around.

What’s more, even common things like opening a new tab can show in your analytics as a “bounce”, when the visitor may have just been comparison shopping or reading reviews – in other words, still very much engaged in possibly taking the action you want!

Once you know what a typical bounce rate is for your type of page, it’s time to work on improving it. Here’s how:

Beef Up Your FAQ

The FAQ… that page you probably haven’t touched since 2005, and yet it could very well be the key to lowering bounce rates. Revisit it and check it for clarity and readability. How well is it answering your customer’s questions, and is it actually answering their questions, or what you think their questions are?

With WordPress, you can take advantage of a robust Q&A-style plugin to make updating and managing your FAQ as easy and straightforward as creating a new page or post.

Improve Page Speed

Google Developer tools hosts a free page speed analysis tool that you can use to not only check your page speed, but get actionable suggestions that you and your team can use to have a measurable impact on how fast your page loads.

If your page is image-heavy and there’s a great deal of scrolling involved, you can use a WordPress plugin like Lazy Load to only load images when they scroll into the user’s view. This saves your server the trouble of needlessly holding up the user while waiting for images to load, and lets them get back to reading and interacting with your page.

Readability vs. Legibility

So far, I’ve focused on a few design-based methods to improve your bounce rate, but at the core of your design, how readable is your content? Dan Zarella has come up with a WordPress content readability checker that sits neatly in your dashboard and scores your content according to grade level for its complexity or simplicity.

Apart from the content reading level itself, you’ll also want to consider the actual legibility of your content – things like increasing the font size for your headings, subheads and text, as well as increasing the line-height. You’ll do this by editing your CSS stylesheet (or having your web designer do it for you).

Give Users Something to Do After They Read Your Content

We spend so much time optimizing our pages to get users to read our quality content that we completely forget what we should be doing after that! Many people use related posts plugins like nRelate and other content discovery widgets. The problem with this is that it takes traffic off your site and onto someone else’s.

Want to keep users involved in your related posts? Try the Contextual Related Posts plugin for WordPress (free) or the paid WP Ajax Related Posts Picker which lets you choose which related posts to show rather than relying on a third-party database to decide for you.

Test Based on the Data You’re Gathering

You can use something as simple and reliable as Google Analytics, but heatmap-based tools like CrazyEgg or Visual Website Optimizer can give you a more visual idea of where your visitors’ focus lies, and where they’re slipping through the cracks.

By creating tests based on areas that are showing weakness (a high bounce rate), you can start to test changes that will make a noticeable impact on lowering your bounce rate, increasing your conversion rate and improving the user experience for everyone

]]>http://ielectrify.com/lower-bounce-rates/feed2What is Conversion Rate Optimization and Why Should You Care?http://ielectrify.com/what-is-conversion-optimization
http://ielectrify.com/what-is-conversion-optimization#respondTue, 08 Oct 2013 16:10:05 +0000http://ielectrify.com/?p=660Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is a marketing strategy that involves compelling a user to take a desired action on a landing page or website. Whether it’s subscribing to a mailing list, downloading a product or placing an order, conversion optimization lets website owners focus on the end result they want to achieve and how to.. Click here to continue reading

]]>Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is a marketing strategy that involves compelling a user to take a desired action on a landing page or website. Whether it’s subscribing to a mailing list, downloading a product or placing an order, conversion optimization lets website owners focus on the end result they want to achieve and how to get there.

It’s All About Effectiveness

At its core, CRO is all about measurement and testing – measuring each step the customer takes to get them where you want them to go, plus testing along the way to see what propels them forward. It could be a change as simple as editing your headline or changing from a default stock photo to a real life shot of your office and colleagues – you’ll never know until you test!

What Do I Test?

The major benefit of CRO is that you can test nearly anything and everything, even with a free system like Google Analytics. Knowing what to test to bring about the biggest results in the shortest amount of time and for a reasonable cost is where hiring a conversion rate expert comes in.

Isn’t Conversion Optimization just Fancy SEO?

SEO (search engine optimization) is all about adjusting various factors to improve your ranking in the search engines. Conversion optimization focuses more on the customer side of things – asking “what motivates a person to take action?” and then capitalizing on those persuasion points to encourage them to complete that action.

What are the Benefits of Conversion Optimization?

There are several great reasons to take advantage of CRO on your website:

Lower Bounce Rate

Your bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who leave your site without taking an action of any kind – they leave often as soon as they arrive. By using conversion optimization, you can discover why they’re leaving, and take steps to keep them involved and interacting with your offer or product.

Higher Return on Investment

Unlike SEO, where strategies change depending on the whims of the search engine, CRO can give you a higher return on investment by helping you focus on what matters to the customer. By removing any stumbling blocks, such as forced registration to checkout, technical errors or poor user experiences navigating the site, you’ll be able to streamline and control the actions users take on your site – putting you in a better position to improve sales and increase profits.

Improved Search Engine Ranking

Search engines like Google are all about the user experience. They want the sites they return in the results pages to be as relevant as possible to the user’s search – otherwise there’s no reason for them to exist! As more people come to, and stay, on your pages – taking the actions you want them to take – search engines will begin to see your site as a recognized resource worth their attention, and your ranking could go up as a result!

Stronger Customer Relationships

People love easy and fast, especially on the web. When you make a process, whether it’s subscribing or checking out, as hassle-free as possible, shoppers appreciate it. They tell their friends, make referrals, and give recommendations – and all of these things can bolster and solidify your position as the go-to source for whatever you’re selling.

How Do I Get Started?

Oftentimes, the first step is diagnosing the problem. A website review can help uncover obstacles your customers are facing, or areas of concern that could be improved. In this review, I’ll go through your website exactly the way a potential customer would, highlighting any issues and zeroing in on points that can cause confusion or friction with your customers.

In the report you’ll receive, you’ll get these details along with steps that can alleviate the problems. If you’re not sure how to implement those steps, don’t worry! I can also provide you with an affordable quote on fixing the issues, streamlining the checkout process and otherwise improving your website’s overall performance.

Just fill out the form below to get more information – there’s no cost and no obligation:

Ready to Improve Conversion Rates?

Let me know what challenges you’re facing and where you’d like to be with your business goals and let’s see how we can move forward together.

]]>http://ielectrify.com/what-is-conversion-optimization/feed07 Things Nobody Ever Tells You about Conversion Optimizationhttp://ielectrify.com/conversion-optimization-secrets
http://ielectrify.com/conversion-optimization-secrets#respondTue, 03 Sep 2013 20:55:02 +0000http://ielectrify.com/?p=655Conversion optimization is much more than just a marketing buzzword – it’s a specific set of skills and expertise that you can leverage to make continuous improvements to your site and refocus your marketing goals. With that being said, however, there are a few things that most conversion rate experts prefer to keep quiet about... Click here to continue reading

]]>Conversion optimization is much more than just a marketing buzzword – it’s a specific set of skills and expertise that you can leverage to make continuous improvements to your site and refocus your marketing goals. With that being said, however, there are a few things that most conversion rate experts prefer to keep quiet about.

But not anymore.

I’m going to share with you the honest truth about the work I do, as well as some advice for making the most of your own conversion optimization work, and it’s my hope that you’ll come away from this post having a better, more well-rounded picture of what conversion rate optimization is, how it works, and what you can expect from it.

Don’t Run Tests Based on Your Likes, Dislikes or Opinions

The best split testing ideas (as in, the ones that bring results) are run based on data you’ve collected. Your analytics should be able to show you all the relevant information you need – including key points such as how long a visitor stayed on a page, what pages they visited, and where they came from. All these factors play a role in fine-tuning your message to reach the right people at the right time.

Running tests based on the data you’re gathering will have a far better, more wide-reaching effect than just changing something because you don’t like it, and you want to see what happens.

Don’t Solely Measure Clicks

“We got a 75% click-through rate!” Great, but how many sales did you get as a result? “Um… none.” Always engage customers at every step along the path. Clicks don’t matter if they don’t result in sales. The same goes for increasing your subscriber list. You may have just netted an extra 300 subscribers, but if they aren’t compelled to buy, you’re just throwing around numbers to sound impressive.

Don’t Freak Out About Bounce Rates

Yes, they’re important – but they’re not the only metric you should be paying attention to. Many companies come to me concerned about their bounce rate and how they can lower it. While most conversion rate consultants will give you ways to do that – if you’re not seeing sales increase as a result – then what’s the point?

Remember that higher bounce rates can be caused by all sorts of things not even related to your site. They’re worth investigating if you suddenly seem to be hemorrhaging visitors or you’re not seeing the kinds of results you normally do – but many, many things play a role in your bounce rate, even things you have no control over.

You Have to Spend Money to Make Money

Yes, you can grab a domain name and hosting for dirt cheap. Yes, you can set up a free WordPress blog and grab a free theme. But in the end, it’s going to reflect poorly on you:

The design is not unique to you and doesn’t consider the goals and motivations of your audience.

Your hosting account will be on a server with hundreds or even thousands of other accounts – just one of which can become compromised (or purposefully spam people) and cause everyone else on the server to get blacklisted. That means few, if any, of your (legitimate!) emails can get through to your prospects.

Some hosting accounts (particularly GoDaddy and Yahoo) are painstakingly slow and force you to jump through flaming hoops if you want any degree of control over managing your site. Even if you don’t want that now – in the future, you will. And no matter what hosting company you’re with, moving a site is never one of those things you look forward to.

I’m not saying you should spend thousands upon thousands of dollars to test the market and even see if your idea will take off. But investing in a well-coded, flexible theme and a decent hosting account will make your life so much easier in the long run.

Split Test EVERYTHING

Not just on your site – but everything you do. Split test your ads, your emails, even your tweets. In time, it will become nearly automatic to you, and you’ll slowly but steadily build up the perfect picture of what gets your audience to respond and take action.

As a side note, don’t get so carried away that you jump head-first into multivariate testing – that is, testing multiple things on multiple pages at once. While it may seem like a great way to get more crucial data faster, it often isn’t as reliable as A/B split testing and forces you to back-track to uncover the real reasons why people acted on this version vs. that version vs. some other version.

Don’t Be Afraid to Make Big Changes

Testing a couple of headlines is good, testing a couple of new homepage designs is great but testing out new sales paths is even better. Look at the big picture rather than dipping a toe or two into the conversion optimization pool.

Once you get the big changes out of the way, you’ll start to form a concrete idea of what your audience really wants, and you can start testing all the little things. There’s no way you’ll ever run out of things to test, so why not start with the things that will make a bigger difference on your revenues?

Increases in Revenue Seldom Last

Even if your conversion optimization expert managed to increase revenues by 30%, that’s still no indication that those results will continue month in and month out. Usually for whatever reason, they don’t – and that just means that you have to continue testing, tweaking and refining. Conversion optimization is a never-ending process, just like search engine optimization, adding new content and other website management tasks.

The good news is that, when you know who you’re optimizing for and how they’re likely to react, you can make the changes that will give you a foreseeable difference in clicks, conversions and most importantly, profits.

Ready to Improve Conversion Rates?

Let me know what challenges you’re facing and where you’d like to be with your business goals and let’s see how we can move forward together.

]]>http://ielectrify.com/conversion-optimization-secrets/feed0FeedBlitz Promotion Code 2013http://ielectrify.com/feedblitz-promotion-code
http://ielectrify.com/feedblitz-promotion-code#respondThu, 11 Jul 2013 16:50:12 +0000http://ielectrify.com/?p=640This FeedBlitz promotion code gives you a free, 60-day trial of FeedBlitz, including its RSS, email marketing and social media services. How to Use the FeedBlitz Coupon Code When checking out with FeedBlitz, you’ll be presented with a screen that lets you choose either a monthly or yearly option, plus add a coupon code or.. Click here to continue reading

How to Use the FeedBlitz Coupon Code

When checking out with FeedBlitz, you’ll be presented with a screen that lets you choose either a monthly or yearly option, plus add a coupon code or promotion code if you have one:

Here’s the Best Part:

FeedBlitz’s billing system is smart enough that it automatically gives you the better deal (in this case the 60 day trial), so you don’t have to worry about which promo code to use.

Extend Your 30 Day Trial to 60 Days

The FEEDBLITZ60 promotional code gives you a whole extra month to try out all of FeedBlitz’s features. If you think it’s just about managing your RSS feed – think again. FeedBlitz has expanded to let you bundle your feed management, email marketing and social media management all in one place.

Not to mention, it makes an excellent alternative to Feedburner.

Give it a try now by clicking here and entering FEEDBLITZ60 as the promotional code.

With more and more demands on your time, having a central location to manage your social media marketing, email/autoresponder and RSS feed management is a huge plus. By keeping everything together via a sleek, easy-to-use interface, you can track, analyze, test and handle subscriptions and campaigns effortlessly.

It’s also the ideal way to encourage visitors to subscribe to blog posts by email. This is especially important in an era where few people even use RSS readers anymore (hence Google canceling theirs). People are starting to spend more time reading a few quality newsletters and blogs via email – so why not make sure yours is in their list?

Every time you write a new blog post, you can feel confident that your RSS subscribers will automatically be updated and alerted to the new post via email – automatically. If you’d like to schedule the announcement for a future date, you can absolutely do that as well. Even more importantly, FeedBlitz only charges you for email subscribers, not RSS. So if you have 10,000 RSS subscribers and 5,000 email subscribers, you’ll still be charged at the 5,000-subscriber level — saving you money each and every month.

]]>http://ielectrify.com/feedblitz-promotion-code/feed0Can Your Domain Name Predict Your Conversion Rate?http://ielectrify.com/domain-predict-conversion-rate
http://ielectrify.com/domain-predict-conversion-rate#respondWed, 10 Jul 2013 16:14:35 +0000http://ielectrify.com/?p=633It sounds crazy, but there’s a very real possibility that the domain name you choose for your new online business or project can have a significant impact on conversion rates. How? To find out, we have to dig a bit deeper into the psychology of what influences a person take one specific action over another... Click here to continue reading

]]>It sounds crazy, but there’s a very real possibility that the domain name you choose for your new online business or project can have a significant impact on conversion rates. How?

To find out, we have to dig a bit deeper into the psychology of what influences a person take one specific action over another.

In other words, what makes them look at your offer and say “Yes, this is definitely something I want” versus, “I can do without this / this isn’t right for me.”

There’s a kernel of truth to the old sales guru saying “no just means I don’t have enough information to make a confident decision yet.”

In this case, however, a decision to take action can ultimately rest on the domain name itself.

Our Brains are Hard-Wired to React Positively to This…

We human beings like systems. We like to know that someone out there (you) has done all the research and all the work to condense what we want to learn into something that’s totally do-able.

Whether it’s how to grow prize-winning tomatoes or how to shed 10 pounds in a week – we secretly want the assurance that you’ve perfected the method into something we can fit into our already overflowing schedules.

Case in point – just look at the sheer sales numbers and constant popularity of online products and offers from domain names that include the words:

Formula

System

Autopilot / Automated / Automatic

Blueprint

Network

Creator

I’m betting you’ve heard of at least one well-known product or website with one or more of those terms in the name. The internet marketing niche absolutely marinates their product launches with names like that – but in that niche, it’s overkill. There are far too many Amazing-Autopilot-Cash-Formula Systems out there competing for a piece of the “make money online” pie.

Other products and offers in different niches who use these words, however, are still enjoying quite a higher degree of success than their competitors – simply because people want things done (or nearly done) for them. And they’re willing to take action on solid, reputable offers that give them that satisfaction.

And, while there aren’t any large-scale experiments done on determining if domain names alone affect conversion rates (simply because there are way too many other factors at play), you can’t ignore the enticing effect that being taught a “formula” or following a “blueprint” can have on influencing you to take action.

A Question for Domain Name Owners:

Do you have one or more of these words in your domain? How has it affected your conversion rates overall? Share your results or thoughts in the comments below!

]]>http://ielectrify.com/domain-predict-conversion-rate/feed0aWeber Coupon Promo Code Revealed!http://ielectrify.com/aweber-gift-code
http://ielectrify.com/aweber-gift-code#respondMon, 01 Jul 2013 22:10:47 +0000http://ielectrify.com/?p=270This aWeber coupon code lets you save over $30 a year on your email autoresponder account. Additional discounts are also available for students and non-profit organizations. Is There an AWeber Promo Code? There’s good news and bad news regarding the much searched-for aWeber coupon code — the good news is, you can save $34.. Click here to continue reading

Is There an AWeber Promo Code?

There’s good news and bad news regarding the much searched-for aWeber coupon code — the good news is, you can save $34 when you opt for the yearly billing option by clicking this link

The bad news is, there is no actual aWeber coupon code listed on the site, despite the fact that it asks you “Have Gift Code?” at checkout.

So why is the option even there?

The answer, according to Tom Kulzer, CEO and founder of aWeber, is that “There are no AWeber promotion codes, aka discounts. We don’t discount the service as it already has tremendous value”.

Interestingly enough, he also admits, “It is interesting how many searches I see in our logs for promotion codes though, just with the one tiny option being on the order form.”

So why is the option even there? As it turns out, aWeber’s order page is part of the same code used on other sites they run, where the option of a gift code or promo code is enabled. Apparently they have no way to turn this off – so there it sits, teasing the user to stop what they’re doing and go hunt for a coupon code.

aWeber Coupon – Sign Up for $1

This represents a great opportunity for aWeber to test whether or not having a promo code would help boost their sales. The fact is, nobody wants to pay full price for anything – so if someone looks for a coupon code and doesn’t find one, they may not end up ordering at all because somewhere, in the back of their mind, they were offered the possibility of an Aweber Gift Code which hinted that they might not have to pay full price at all!

Although, as Mr. Kulzer himself states, aWeber is already a great value for the features it offers. Still, wouldn’t the option of a promo code at least be worth testing? It wouldn’t even have to save someone money, but it could used another way, say in conjunction with an upsell offer or a bonus or some kind.

You can also use that same link to take a test drive of the aWeber autoresponder for just $1. That gives you a chance to try out aWeber before you join to see just how easy it is to use.

Give it a try now by clicking here and scrolling to the bottom of the page. Enter your name and e-mail to start the test drive.

In addition to helping you manage your mailing list, aWeber also provides free email newsletter templates, a point-and-click web form designer, unlimited email campaigns and most importantly, one of the highest email deliverability rates in the industry.

With spam at an all-time high, numerous email and internet service providers have started requiring strict guidelines from people and companies that send a high volume of e-mail, even if it’s legitimate. aWeber currently has a full 30 day money back guarantee, so you can try out each of these suggestions for one whole month – and if it doesn’t live up to your expectations, you can request a refund. In addition, they also have around a $30+ savings when you sign up for a year – a discount that’s far better than any coupon code or gift card! To get started and nab your $30+ savings, join free at http://freeinfo.aweber.com

]]>http://ielectrify.com/aweber-gift-code/feed0Will Google AdWords Image Extensions Increase Conversion Rates?http://ielectrify.com/adwords-image-extensions-conversion-rates
http://ielectrify.com/adwords-image-extensions-conversion-rates#commentsTue, 11 Jun 2013 20:34:29 +0000http://ielectrify.com/?p=611The PPC world has been abuzz lately over the recent announcement that Google has released its image extensions program in beta. Adwords Image Extensions are a special type of pay per click listing currently only available to the top bidder, which allows them to add certain images under their text ads. To further separate them.. Click here to continue reading

The PPC world has been abuzz lately over the recent announcement that Google has released its image extensions program in beta. Adwords Image Extensions are a special type of pay per click listing currently only available to the top bidder, which allows them to add certain images under their text ads.

To further separate them from Product Listing Ads, which appear on the right side of searches, the new Image Extensions graphics must have more of a polished, professional feel. But what do these new ad types mean for conversion rates?

Credit: Search Engine Land

What AdWords Image Extensions Mean for Conversion Rates

Although the program is still in beta, as more and more bidders are accepted, you can expect the competition to escalate quickly. The sleek, stunning ads will reel in the “Oooooh shiny” impulse clickers – increasing clicks (and costs) for the highest bidder, but not necessarily increasing their conversion rates.

As always, it’s all going to come down to how targeted and relevant that landing page is. For poor converting pages, AdWords Image Extensions is going to be like a beautifully wrapped (and expensive) gift box full of rocks. The only way these new image ads are going to have a resounding ripple effect on product sales is if the landing page is equally as attractive.

Reaching the 1%

Right now, image-enhanced ads only appear in about 1% of searches — particularly electronics, automotive and travel searches. As of yet, there’s no concrete data available for how conversion rates are faring for advertisers in the program. It’s a fairly safe bet to say that image-based ads are (initially) going to get more clicks. But it’s the subsequent pages that will have to do all the heavy lifting to turn that click into a conversion.

With that being said, if you’re considering applying to, or have been accepted as an AdWords Image Extensions advertiser, here are several landing page best practices to consider using to make those clicks count:

Exact Campaign Matching – If you don’t already have specific landing pages for each product (even going so far as to the actual make and model), create them. Make the focus as tight and as relevant as you can to the searcher’s query – even going so far as to reference specific keywords if it makes sense to do so.

Instant Gratification – Realize that most people who click image ads in the beginning are going to be looking for immediate results. You should split test landing pages which remove other recommended products, navigation and other outside stuff that doesn’t directly deal with that specific product.

Short and Sweet – You have a split second to command attention. People want to know precisely why they should take advantage of your offer versus a competitor, or versus doing nothing at all. Google’s own product listing ads make it temptingly easy to comparison search. Make sure your copy is tight and your call-to-action actually includes an action (such as “View Product Specs” versus “Download Our Brochure”)

Social Proof – If you have enough followers and fans to make a statement, nothing reinforces the power of your offer quite like a hefty helping of social proof, best served as Facebook Likes with profile pictures:

Manage Forms Effectively – If you can, offer a single-step form on the landing page which lets users know which step they’re on (i.e. Step 1 of 3) that will at the very least, get their email address into your sales funnel.

Don’t Neglect the Thank You page – Thank you pages are often created as more of an afterthought that includes links to the promised download…and little else. Let your customers know what’s next in the process – will you follow up with them to see if they have questions? If so, when? Will they receive a newsletter? How often? Can they see a sample issue in advance? Including this kind of information keeps people in the know and in control of how and when they receive correspondence from you.

What Do You Think About Adwords Image Extensions?

This new image-based direction that Google is taking has certainly given PPC advertisers reason for concern. On one hand, you have the camp that’s cringing at the thought of battling it out for first place. Then there are the advertisers that welcome the opportunity to show off their sleek, glossy ads and promotions with less of an emphasis on the cost, and more of a focus on what they stand to gain. Which camp do you fall in? Share your thoughts with me below!

Need Help Getting Your Landing Pages to Convert?

Ready to Improve Conversion Rates?

Let me know what challenges you’re facing and where you’d like to be with your business goals and let’s see how we can move forward together.

]]>http://ielectrify.com/adwords-image-extensions-conversion-rates/feed1Finally – A Google Wonder Wheel Alternativehttp://ielectrify.com/google-wonder-wheel-alternative
http://ielectrify.com/google-wonder-wheel-alternative#commentsWed, 29 May 2013 21:06:01 +0000http://ielectrify.com/?p=603Google’s contextual targeting tool is often hailed as an alternative to Google Wonder Wheel – that helpful visual keyword research tool that had the rug jerked out from under it back in 2011. Much to the disappointment of search engine optimizers, marketers and specialists, the loss was permanent. Until now. If, like me, you still.. Click here to continue reading

]]>Google’s contextual targeting tool is often hailed as an alternative to Google Wonder Wheel – that helpful visual keyword research tool that had the rug jerked out from under it back in 2011. Much to the disappointment of search engine optimizers, marketers and specialists, the loss was permanent.

Until now.

If, like me, you still prefer the old clickable visual wheel-and-spoke layout of the Google keyword research and suggestion tool, you’re in luck. One programmer has brought back the simplicity and ease of use of the Google Wonder Wheel, using Google’s own keyword database.

The Google Wonder Wheel Alternative

No matter what new ranking algorithms and shake-ups affect web pages, one of the consistent points that Google looks at is relevancy. After all, their job as a search engine is to connect people to exactly what they’re looking for, right away. If the information isn’t relevant, it doesn’t reflect well on Google.

Sure, there are lots of helpful on-page optimization factors that help your relevancy, such as:

Backlinks from respected websites

Social networking signals

Inter-linking pages

Helpful, actionable content

And so on – but with a tool that acts as a Google Wonder Wheel alternative, you’ll not only be able to discover which keywords Google finds most relevant to your existing keywords, but you can also leverage on-page SEO to rank for those very terms, even when the competition is fierce.

Plus, unlike the original Google Wonder Wheel – you can create unlimited levels of keyword maps. That means you can drill down as deep as you need to in order to find related keywords that fit your topic.

Buying the tool ($17) also gives you some bonuses, like a quick-start guide and training videos. But one of the more helpful tools included is a Content Analyzer, which looks at your content and determines its relevancy based on the keywords you’ve chosen. It’s very helpful if you’re walking a fine line between maintaining a specific keyword density while still writing to appeal to your readers.

I will warn you that the site is targeted to internet marketers, so you’ll get the typical “X Copies Left at This Price” and the long scrolling homepage – but if you can overlook those things, Keyword Map Pro makes an excellent alternative to Google Wonder Wheel that’s definitely worth having in your keyword research arsenal.